The day Gervasio Deferr touched heaven before falling into hell

BarcelonaTwenty-five years ago, Gervasio Deferr (Premià de Mar, 1980) won a gold medal in the vault at the Sydney Olympic Games that seemed like something out of science fiction. Never before had a Spanish gymnast managed to surpass the top of the podium of Russians, Japanese, Americans, or Chinese athletes. But on September 25, 25 years ago, Deferr touched the sky with that gold medal at Sydney's SuperDome. Few people imagined then what would happen next. Like Icarus, he wanted to fly and burned his wings, falling into a hell of injuries, drugs, and lawsuits.

Gervasio Deferr arrived at the 2000 Games in a strong mood, but it was hard to imagine he would win a gold medal that not even Madrid's Jesús Carballo had achieved in 1996 when he was the favorite. State gymnastics seemed cursed even after the plane crash that killed Catalan Joaquim Blume, just when he seemed poised to win gold on the rings. Deferr was fighting against history. No problem, because he was a wrestler, the son of an Argentine couple who had fled the military dictatorship. "My parents were tired of me because I climbed everywhere. They signed me up for gymnastics to see if I'd tire out, and the opposite happened," Deferr himself explained to ARA. Coached by Alfredo Hueto, Gervasio began to excel at the Catalan championships in the floor and vault exercises. He was a whirlwind who revolutionized Spanish and European gymnastics with his physique and daring style. He wanted to be like the Russian Alexei Nemov, and in 1999, he found himself at the World Championships in Tianjin (China), winning silver in the floor exercise behind... Nemov. "I no longer wanted to be like him; now I wanted to beat him," he explained. The next challenge was the Games. "I arrived in Sydney very young, and I'd only been training for years. I'd dropped out of school, as I prioritized training, and I never got back to it. I was coming in very strong, and I thought I could win it all," she recalls. The Spanish delegation was certain that Deferr would win a medal in the floor exercise. But in the qualifying round, she jumped too vigorously and, seeing that she would land outside the permitted surface, she corrected the exercise in the air. The penalty knocked her out of the final. It was a hard blow, but it "gave her energy for the vault exercise." Deferr performed three very difficult jumps and surprised everyone by taking gold in the final. No one expected it. "I was very reckless. I had escaped from the Olympic Village to go out partying, and while jumping through a hole in the fence, I got an injury that I hid from the coaches," she admitted.

Deferr competed and lived on the edge. And he would start going out too much. He was young, strong, attractive, and famous. And he lost his way. The consequence was injuries and a positive test for cannabis. "I broke my shoulders, my back all over...from 2000 to 2004 it was hell. I started training a few months before the Athens Games; no one believed I'd achieve anything. I won the same gold and finished fourth in the floor final," recalled a man who had won the night before. "I don't remember anything about that night. I was pissed off for not having won gold in the floor exercise," he would declare. And yet, he won gold a few hours later. In 2008, he would add another medal, silver in the floor exercise, at a time when he was struggling to keep his demons at bay. "I spent two years thinking about whether or not I would go to the 2012 London Games. When I finally accepted that I wouldn't go, I had six months to think about what I would do with my life before officially announcing my withdrawal. I had been doing the same thing for 25 years and didn't know what to do next," he recalls. He fell into a darker hole than the ones before. "My head wouldn't stop. So I screwed myself up with everything, to avoid thinking. Think about it, I came from a different world. I hadn't screwed myself up with a beer socially at seventeen on a terrace, with potatoes and olives. At seventeen, I was training like crazy. So when I got down in the dumps, I left. No one. I hurt myself. People must understand that you have to ask for help," he told ARA a few years ago. "I tried to do things, find my place. I accompanied Ray Zapata to training at the High Performance Center or participated in Ona FM broadcasts of Real Madrid matches, like in meringue Catalan that I am. But I couldn't. I had to stop. I knew I wasn't working well," he admits.

Deferr would begin to see the light thanks to people like the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, Alejandro Blanco. "I came to the La Mina gymnastics club, where a few of us had opened in 2010 to help young people in the neighborhood. But since I wasn't well, I had problems with other coaches. And I had to be honest and tell the students' parents that I had a problem. That I was quitting because I needed help. Everyone was crying that day. I asked Alejandro Blanco for help and spent ten months at the center so I could come out a different person. I had the right to mature, later than others," he would say. Deferr was able to return to the La Mina gymnastics club to train young gymnasts. It seemed like the worst was over. In 2024, a recording was even made. The great leap, a series based on the book he wrote with journalist Roger Pascual, explaining his struggles. It was then that a woman filed a complaint against Deferr, claiming he had raped her when he was the coach of the Sant Cugat CAR (Car Club of Sant Cugat), and she was an underage gymnast. The former Olympic champion denies the allegations and is now fighting in court to clear his name from an anonymous complaint. He still hasn't found peace.